Wine Tasting - How to Determine the Order?

And then the time has come! You have invited a number of fellow wine lovers to taste wines. Everyone happily enters with a bottle, white chilled and red at room temperature, whether or not it fits within a certain theme, takes a seat at the table behind a row of glasses and a tasting form. Full of anticipation, all eyes are on you as the host, because which bottle will you open first?

It is indeed important to follow a certain order. Imagine biting into a bright green apple and then into a soft chocolate cake. Not so bad, right? But do it the other way around! The fresh apple, after the sweet and full chocolate, comes across as hard and sour on your taste buds. They will protest! Or eat a firm salami with lots of garlic and peppers; how does a young slice of goat cheese taste after this? Exactly, your taste buds are greatly influenced by what they are confronted with. So to be able to taste wines optimally, you build up the intensity.

1. Sparkling wines are always a good place to start. The cool bubbles neutralize the taste in the mouth. A sparkling wine often also works well as an intermezzo during a dinner to sharpen the taste buds again.

2. Then continue with fresh light white wines, such as a Sauvignon Blanc, Portuguese Arinto, German Silvaner or a Sardinian Vermentino.

3. By serving powerful white wines afterwards, a wood-matured white Chardonnay or a rich Mauzac from Gaillac, you build up the intensity and mouthfeel. These wines often fall under the heading of ripe and full.

4. Rosé is a nice transition from white to red wines. And for rosé too, it is true that you build it up. After all, you have light, simple rosé, but also richer, powerful varieties, for example from the French Provence.

5. Although the soft light red wines are next on the program, the first sip can take some getting used to. Your taste buds have to adjust to the drying effect of the tannin. The second sip will feel less astringent. The ‘light red’ category includes, for example, Pinot Noirs, Gamays and red Jura wines.

6. After the light red, the red powerhouses come to the table; tannic, alcoholic and powerful red wines. Think of a dark Primitivo from Apulia, Mavruds from Bulgaria, Malbec from Cahors or Shiraz from Australia. To come back to tannin. It builds up. So it may well be that the more tannic wines you drink, the less you notice this in the mouthfeel. Moreover, many of these wines are made to be eaten with, so that the wine becomes a bit ‘softer’. Although this can affect the taste palette, you can consider serving a snack with this selection of wines, for example a spicy sausage, rilette de canard or a piece of roast beef.

7. You can quench the rough violence of strong red with rich sweet wines. These wines, a German or Austrian Beerenauslese, Tokaji Aszu or Port, have a higher viscosity and therefore give a full and filmy mouthfeel. In addition, the intensity of the aromas and taste characteristics is also quite high. A nice ending. Moreover, sweet wines can be combined very nicely with a cheese board. Put it on the table as soon as the sweet bottles are opened and you have a tasty and very pleasant ending to your wine tasting.

Determining the right order seems very simple, but the reality is sometimes more stubborn. If you cannot deduce from the label of unknown and old wines which category a wine fits best, you will first have to taste it. There are even more advantages to tasting the wines in advance. Not only can you determine the best order, but you can also immediately assess whether a wine is better expressed by decanting or carafing. Water can also be consumed throughout the tasting.